Dear kstrode,
In general, I can only congratulate you on your website. I looked at
it under several viewpoints, such as searching for information on your
professional services, information for graduates interested in
becoming a patent attorney, or information on how to establish contact
with your company, to name only a few. And I did not encounter the
slightest problems, neither of technical kind nor caused by
deficiencies in the site's structure.
Whoever was responible for the design did a very good job by
organizing the content in a logical, concise way. Also, the texts are
written a a very clear, articulate style; I felt well-informed. All
common mistakes, like confusingly convoluted menus, useless fancy
graphics that only extend the time a site takes to load, or not
clearly labelling menu points, have been avoided.
There are only two minor things that caused slight irritations:
1. The pop-up menus in the horizontal menu bar could need one small
improvement: When the mouse cursor hovers over the menu points, their
color changes almost unrecognisably, from grey to black. I had to look
very closely to make it out at all. That is not enough to let the user
clearly identify a link as "active". I recommend enhancing that in the
way that a menu link touched by the cursor changes from grey to a more
eye-catching colour like red.
2. The second point is not about a compulsory change, only a small
improvement in appearance. My screen resolution is 800 x 600, and your
site seems to be optimized for it. That is absolutely fine, since it
is far better than a site designed for higher resolutions that forces
the visitor using a lower screen resolution to permanently scroll.
But I had a useless horizontal scroll bar at the bottom. It was not
necessary, since the scrolling was limited to a few pixels only.
Nevertheless, a control element not fulfilling a function affects the
good and professional impression of a website.
The width of the graphic elements is responsible for the scroll bar. I
recommend to either reduce the broadness of those elements or to
disable all horizontal scrollbars, should the web design application
used by you contain this feature (it would take much less work than
re-arranging the graphics).
Apart from those two small points, I don't find fault with your
website. It is user-friendly, well organized and structured, and sound
in design and appearance.
Hope this helps!
Best regards,
Scriptor |
Clarification of Answer by
scriptor-ga
on
25 Mar 2003 09:48 PST
Dear kstrode,
I noticed that the last menu point in the tool bar has no drop-down
menu - and in my eyes, that is very good! Implementing features where
they are not necessary is confusing, and due to the additional code
needed, the risk of malfunctions becomes bigger. Drop-down menus are
no good when there are no sub-categories to choose from under a menu
point. The contact link is meant to lead to a single sub-page of your
website; using an animated drop-down menu here would not improve
usability or appearance.
As for the internal search engine: It does its job. From my own
experiences in web design, I know that most people - even very
intelligent ones - have no clue at all of how to really use search
features. Most even completely ignore search tools on websites. A
well-structured content, accessible via a clear menu, is far more
valuable.
Of course, every review is highly subjective, no matter whether the
object is a film, a stageplay, a book, or a website. As every
reviewer, the best I can do is give you my opinion on your work, and
try to explain why my impression is like it is. I liked your sound,
staid website, and there is only one advice I would give you: Don't
impair your website by trying too hard to find ways to improve it.
Best regards,
Scriptor
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